Hey, so I’ve been playing piano for a fair bit and I noticed that I don’t really possess the ability to play medium-sized leaps without glancing down at my hands. I was wondering a couple things:

Should I be practicing my pieces without looking at my hands (I miss a lot of notes, and I’m worried that if I practice like this I’ll develop bad habits even when I look down at my hands, I have an exam coming up soon so I don’t want my practice to hinder my performance).

Should you be glancing down at your hands when doing jumps between different octaves (usually just one apart in the current pieces I’m playing).

Kind of a reiteration, but I kind of just want to empathize this since it’s my main question. If I practice while looking at my music and not at my hands and continuously miss notes, will those habits transfer to my playing when I do look at my hands occasionally?

The reason I started doing this for practice was so I could improve my ability to sight read by not looking down at my hands and focusing on the music.